Welcome to the Family
by LERDM
Summary: Batfam oneshots and/or small series. Mostly Jason-centric, but everyone is involved. One: Jason's been keeping an adorable secret from the family. Two: When Damian is captured, an unlikely ally comes to his rescue. Three: Forced to relive the worst days of their lives, will it bring the batfam closer together?
1. Jason's Baby pt 1

If you had asked Bruce what he thought was going to happen that night, he would've said the usual. Patrol, maybe meeting up with Jim, back to the cave, write reports, then, maybe, sleep before he had business at Wayne Enterprises.

The first unusual thing was a call from Dick.

"Nightwing, what's going on?" Bruce answered as he stood atop a Gotham roof.

Bruce knew something was off the moment he could hear a baby crying in the background. "Uh... hey- kid, please, please stop crying- hey Bruce. Uh, have you seen Jason around the city tonight?"

Bruce hadn't, Bruce hadn't seen Jason in a long time, almost 10 months to be exact. He hadn't seen much of the Red Hood either, and when he had, it was clear the man wasn't exactly the same. He hadn't killed anyone for the same ten-month period, and he wasn't ever seen much more than once or twice a week.

"No. Why is there a child with you?" Bruce said in his low gravely voice.

"Shh, shh, what do you want, please stop crying- Uh, so... I'm at Jason's apartment. I got a call from one of his neighbors who watches this kid- ow, ow, no don't pull my hair- and apparently he's Jason's son."

Bruce froze, "What?" He snapped.

"Yeah, I know. Anyway, this old lady told me that she watches him- I don't know, I don't-" Dick's voice was cut off by a baby scream-crying "dadadadada!" into the phone. "She watches him when Jason goes out and he told her that if he didn't come back after 12 hours that she was supposed to call me. Kid, kid, I'm sorry, I don't know where Jason is."

Bruce was shocked, Jason had a son? And he hadn't told anyone? And he was missing.

"Okay, bring him back to the manor, I'll inform the others to find Jason," Bruce said.

"Yeah, okay, please hurry," Dick said.

"I'll meet you at the cave," Bruce said.

...

Dick was trying to gather the things he'd need, but he really wasn't certain what went into the care of an infant. The kid was obviously too young to properly communicate, the only things he said between wails were "Dadadadada!" and "Em-em! Em-em!"

Luckily, the same old woman from the apartment next to Jason's came back to help Dick pack up the kid. She strapped the boy into a carrier, gave Dick a diaper bag with spare clothes, gave the kid his favourite toy, which to Dick's amusement was a Wonder Woman plushie, and a few bottles of formula in case the boy got hungry again before Dick found any more of the stuff.

"Wait, what did you say his name was again?" Dick asked her.

"Emmett, but Jason always calls him his little M&M," she answered.

Ah, so that would explain the constant shouting of "Em-em! Em-em!".

Honestly, Dick was having so many problems picturing Jason holding a baby and calling it his 'little M&M'. Jason. The Red Hood, the man who has killed hundreds of people, has a baby. And now that baby was continually throwing Wonder Woman at his head in the back of the taxi they were taking to Wayne Manor.

Alfred was waiting at the door. Thank god.

"Alfred, he won't stop crying," Dick said as he tried to rock the carrier back and forth soothingly. Emmett was not soothed.

When Alfred bent down to unstrap the baby, the strangest thing happened.

"Alf!" Emmett shouted, stopping his crying momentarily.

Alfred and Dick froze for a second, "Did he just-"

"Alf! Alf! Em-Em! Dadadada!"

Alfred looked like he was about to tear up. He smiled widely as he freed the child and held him in his arms. "Come now master Emmett, we'll find your father. For now you can stay with us."

"Where's Timmy and Damian?" Dick asked.

"They went out to look for Master Jason," Alfred said. However, he was starting to realize that mentioning Jason in the presence of Emmett was never a good idea.

"Dada!" Emmett wailed and resumed his crying.

Alfred sighed as he tried to calm the child, "Master Dick, why don't you go down to the cave and see if you can aid them in finding Master Jason."

Dick darted down the stairs, Alfred didn't need to tell him twice.

...

Jason blearily opened his eyes. He was leaning up against an alleyway in the Narrows, bleeding all over the place. He checked his phone, missed calls from the sitter, Dick, Bruce, everyone. This was not good. He checked the tracking device he put in Emmett's favourite toy and saw that the child was at Wayne Manor. The next number he dialled was Dick's.

"Jason! Where are you?!" Dick answered frantically.

"I'm in the narrows, by the old sushi place we went to that one time and got sick, remember," Jason said blearily. "You have him?"

"Yeah, Emmett's with Alfred," Dick said. Jason didn't reply, but Dick could hear the harshness of his breath on the other line. He sent out the emergency signal to the others and continued trying to keep Jason conscious. "What happened?"

"It was an ambush, I... I was out of my depth, I tried to leave and get back-up, but-" Jason cut himself off with a groan. "Got beat up pretty bad, got shot, passed out in this alley."

There was a pause on both ends until Dick worked up the courage to ask what he really wanted to. "Jason, why didn't you tell us?"

"I wanted to... I came close a few times, but... I-I was scared, Dick. I was scared Bruce would try and take him. You gotta take care of him Dick, please. In the diaper bag, it's all of the documents and the paperwork and-"

"Jason, they're on their way, you're going to be okay. Don't worry," Dick tried to reassure him. When Jason didn't respond, Dick became worried, "Jason? Jason, hang in there, Bruce is coming."

...

Bruce and Tim arrived at the same time with Damian right behind them.

Tim rushed to Jason's side while Bruce told Dick that they had found him.

"He's lost a lot of blood B," Tim said nervously, "Only one gunshot wound, several lacerations to his torso, and it appears he's suffered some sort of head trauma."

"Dick, have blood ready when we get there," Bruce added.

Damian appeared in the opening of the alleyway, waiting beside the Batmobile.

Jason's eyes briefly fluttered open, "Timbers?"

"Don't worry Jason, we got you, you're going to be okay," Tim said. "What happened to your head?" He asked.

"Got... shoved into a wall," Jason said between pained breaths.

"Okay, it doesn't look fractured. Is there anything else other than the obvious?"

"I think I broke a few ribs," Jason said.

Tim nodded, "Alright, do you think you can stand if I get you up?" Jason nodded and Tim helped him to his feet. Bruce was on Jason's other side in an instant, helping take some of his weight. They carefully put him down in the back of the Batmobile. Tim sat back there with him, doing his best to stop the bleeding while Damian rode up front with Bruce.

When Jason's eyes started to close Tim shook him slightly, "Hey, what are you doing? Stay awake."

"'m jus tired, its been a while," Jason said.

"A while since what?" Tim asked.

"Since I slept," Jason replied. "Emmett isn't a good sleeper." It was pretty clear from the way he was slurring the words that Jason was only saying this because he was on the brink of unconsciousness. "He doesn't cry... jus laughs all the time... so happy... like Dickie-bird."

Tim stared at Jason with a small smile, "Well, he's gonna be happy to see you."

Jason hummed and smiled deleriously, "Yeah... hope so."

They pulled up in the Batcave not too long later and Bruce carried Jason to the medical table that Dick had already set up.

The three of them worked fast, Damian went upstairs to shower. Jason's injuries, while causing a lot of bleeding, weren't actually too severe. A couple of broken ribs, a bullet wound that hadn't managed to hit anything, some good cuts to his arms and back, but nothing life-threatening besides the blood loss.

It only took a half-hour to stitch everything up and wrap up his chest, then all they could do is wait for him to wake up. They gave him some fairly strong sedatives while they were giving him stitches, and with the amount of blood he had lost they were pretty sure he would be asleep for at least the rest of the night.

So after they changed out of their suits, they went up to meet the new family member, who was still freaking out.

"How is master Jason?" Alfred asked with concern. This was followed by the screaming of "Dadadada!" However, when Emmett saw that new people had arrived, his crying temporarily stopped.

"He's stable, he'll be alright, but we gave him some mild sedatives so he shouldn't wake up until tomorrow," Bruce replied. His usually hard features had softened in the presence of the adorable baby.

Tim was the first one to approach the kid, "Your dad's going to be alright, Emmett."

The kid beamed and reached out to Tim, "Tim! Tim!" Then he giggled like it was the funniest thing ever, that Tim Drake was standing in front of him.

Dick looked at the kid with shock clearly written on his features and Tim was beaming.

"Yeah, I'm Tim," he said, brushing a finger over Emmett's tiny hand.

"Alf! Tim! Em-em!" Emmett shouted gleefully, doing a complete 180 from the scream-crying he had been doing before.

Alfred smiled widely, "Master Emmett is extremely fond of naming things." Alfred held up Emmett's Wonder Woman plushie.

"Pincess! Pincess!" He exclaimed while grabbing it.

However, the young child's grip was not the best, and he accidentally let the toy go. Damian, who was closest, grabbed it quickly before it hit the ground and gave it back to the child.

"Wobin!" Emmett shouted as he grabbed a fistful of Damian's hair.

"Please refrain from grabbing my hair," Damian said calmly as he removed himself from Emmett's grip. "And my name is not Robin-" "Wobin!" "-no. It is Dam-"

"Dada?" Emmett questioned, as he feebly looked around and did not see Jason he started to cry again. "Dadadada!"

That was when Bruce stepped forward, "Don't cry Emmett, your dad is going to be okay. You can see him in the morning, okay?" Bruce wiped the cheeks of the tiny boy with his large thumb.

Emmett stared at Bruce for a moment, stopping his crying. Emmett looked like he was really thinking hard about something before he finally declared: "Gampa!", stuck out his tongue and spit into Bruce's face. There was a moment of silence before Dick and Tim broke out into wild laughter and Emmett joined them. Alfred was smiling widely, and even Damian couldn't keep an amused smirk off his face.

Everyone was too busy laughing at the interaction between Bruce and Emmett that no one noticed a new presence leaning against the archway into the sitting room, everyone except for Emmett who noticed his father right away.

"Dada! Dada!" Emmett shouted happily.

Everyone froze as Jason, who was smirking, limped forward and took his son from Alfred.

"Hey M&M, sorry about tonight," Jason said before kissing the boy on the forehead. Jason's smirk turned into a smile that was unfamiliar to the rest of the family, "Did you get everyone's names right?" Jason cooed. Emmett made an adorable giggling noise. "I bet you haven't gone to sleep, have you?" Emmett's response to that was also to giggle.

"Jason? How are you even awake right now?" Tim asked.

"Most sedatives don't work on me anymore, not since the Pit," Jason said. Usually, his expression would have darkened, but it was hard to do at that moment due to Emmett reaching up to play with the white streak in Jason's hair which was also a remnant from the Pit. "So... which one of you is going to give me a spare shirt and a lift back to my apartment?"

"You can't go home in this state, Jason," Bruce said. "Just stay here for a few days, please."

Jason stared at his... family, the family of his son. "Yeah, alright. Just a few days though, or else Janice is going to break down my door."

"Janice... is that... his mother?" Dick asked cautiously.

Jason had to stop himself from laughing because of his ribs, "Emmett, say, 'that's silly'."

Emmett giggled, "Silly, silly."

"No, Janice is the head mom in the baby group," Jason said, like that explained everything.

"What is this baby group you speak of?" Damian questioned.

"Basically it's parents that have too much time on their hands. We take the kids to swim and music sometimes and we jog around with their strollers..." Jason trailed off, "It sounds less fun than it is."

Dick, Tim and Bruce were all frozen in shock as Jason discussed his daily life as a single dad being pursued by all these stay-at-home moms to Damian and Alfred.

Somewhere in his story of how Janice has the crazy hots for Jason, Emmett calmed down and fell asleep in Jason's arms.

Damian and Tim were both sent to bed by Bruce as they both had school the next day while Dick, Bruce, Alfred and Jason spent basically the entire night talking about Emmett.

"So, who's the mom?" Dick asked.

"Her name's Katie," Jason said. "She didn't tell me her last name. I was uh... really drunk one night and one thing led to another. I could barely even remember sleeping with her, so you can kind of imagine my surprise when she shows up with this newborn. She was going to give him up for adoption, but she figured maybe I'd want a shot with him." Jason looked down at his little boy. "She gave me all the documents, had all the paperwork ready to go, and then she left. I don't really blame her, she was a university student whose parents had just died. She was about to move to Metropolis into student housing with roommates and you can't do that with a baby. But oh man is she missing out. This little guy is the best."

"So... why doesn't Emmett know my name?" Dick asked.

Jason smiled slightly, "Yeah, you know, I had the same problem with trying to get him to say Damian, because as soon as you try and get him to say anything that starts with D, he just starts going 'dada'. So I got him to say Damian was Robin, but I just wasn't sure what nickname I could give you. We'll work on it."

"Master Jason, how ever did you manage to teach him to recognize us?" Alfred asked.

"Oh I got pictures of all of you on my phone, we go through them and practice all the time. Mostly we practise Bruce's because he likes doing the spitting thing. I tried to get him to call you Old Man, but he hasn't quite gotten ahold of multi-word sayings yet."

Bruce smiled, "Well, I'm okay with grampa."

"You would be," Jason muttered. "Oh, and uh... I guess I told Katie that you had adopted me, so she assumed that my last name way Wayne, so Emmett's name is technically Emmett Wayne."

Bruce could barely contain his smile, "Well, that's... good?" He said trying to read what Jason thought about it.

"Yeah, I figure that even if my parents were alive, I wouldn't want M&M to have anything to do with them anyway," Jason said. "But if you don't-"

"No, no, I... I like it," Bruce said.

Dick's mind suddenly hatched an excellent plan, "Hey Jason, then why don't you change your name too? It'll get confusing, especially when Emmett gets to school age, that his father doesn't have the same last name as him."

The table tensed as everyone waited for Jason to have a reaction, but he surprised everyone by simply cursing under his breath, "Shit, that's a good point Dickie, I hadn't thought of that. What will Janice think?"

Dick rolled his eyes, "Just think about it, Jason. I'm going to sleep. If you want I can run by your apartment tomorrow and get more of Emmett's stuff."

"Yeah, that'd be nice Dick," Jason said. "Thanks."

"No problem Jason," Dick said as he left the room.

"How old is he?" Bruce asked.

"He's 9 months and... 3 weeks," Jason said.

"He's pretty advanced," Bruce said.

"In talking, yeah, but he can't move around so well. We're working on it," Jason said with a small shrug. "Speaking of moving around, I'm gonna get some sleep too."

"Perhaps I should go and get the crib?" Alfred offered.

Jason waved him off with the arm that wasn't holding Emmett, "It's alright Alfred, he barely ever gets through the night without ending up sleeping on me anyway."

Jason hobbled up the stairs and into his old room while Bruce and Alfred stayed on the main level for a moment longer.

"Well, it seems your boys have grown up... Grampa," Alfred said with a slightly teasing smile. "I believe it is time to retire for the night Master Bruce."

"Yeah, thanks for your help today Alfred," Bruce said.

"Please do not doubt that holding your grandson was nothing less than a privilege," Alfred said sincerely. "Goodnight Master Bruce."

"'night Alfred," Bruce said. He walked up the stairs, first pausing at Damian's room, peeking in and seeing a sleeping form. Then he looked into Tim's room, seeing the kid passed out at his desk in front of a now-dark computer screen. Bruce entered the room quietly and picked up the slim boy, carrying him to bed.

Tim murmured something along the lines of, "No... Damian, no biting." And Bruce had to suppress a chuckle.

He pulled the covers over Tim, "Have a good sleep, Timmy."

Dick's room was next. The former acrobat was simply laying on his back and staring at the ceiling, he looked over at Bruce when he opened the door.

"Goodnight, Dick," Bruce said.

Dick smiled, "Night, Bruce."

Bruce finally came across the final door, the room next to his own that was almost always empty. He opened the door and smiled. Jason was laying on his back, and tucked into his side was little Emmett. Bruce felt bad when Jason's eyes opened and glanced over to Bruce.

He was still half asleep as he murmured, "Night dad."

Bruce had never gone to sleep happier.


	2. Saving the Family pt 1 - Alfred

It seemed exceedingly unlikely that they were going to make it through whatever the hell this thing was. They were all there. Bruce, Dick, Tim, Damian, even Jason. You see... a troll had taken Alfred. Actually, Jason wasn't confident that it was a troll, but it was ugly as hell, so that was what he was going with.

"If you want your Alfred back, you must face your fears!" The not-troll boomed. "And you will fail! No man can look into the depth of their own minds!"

Bruce looked back at his kids, his boys. "Leave now. I'll get Alfred."

"Why would we leave? Do you take us for cowards father?" Damian demanded.

"NO! No one will leave!" Troll-face thundered.

"Well there you go," Tim said. "He said no."

Bruce turned to the older two. "Dick, Jason, get them out of here."

Dick looked hesitant, but Jason put a hand on Damian's shoulder. "Listen Damian, your father's right. Trust me, I've had a lot of bad days. No one needs to relive them except me."

That was a bit of a dagger in Bruce's heart, but he appreciated Jason was trying to protect them.

Damian swatted Jason's hand away. "Unlike you, Todd, I'm not afraid of a clown!"

"This is about Alfred, not us. I don't care what we've been through, what our beef is with each other. We're going to suck it up, for Alfred," Dick spoke definitively.

Bruce looked at Jason, who looked accepting of Dick's verdict.

"Fine," Bruce said with a sigh. "Uh... Hey! What are we supposed to do?!" He shouted to the giant... thing.

"Get into the pool of reflection... and reflect! If you leave, your friend will be destroyed!"

The five of them stepped into the pool and waited. "Uh... is this thing working?" Tim asked.

Just then, they were sucked into the 'magic' of the swirling pool.

They found themselves watching a fairly familiar memory. Dick and Bruce had been there, but it was Tim's memory.

Tim's dad had sped down the road to Wayne Manor just as Nightwing, Batman and Robin had come back from their most recent battle in Gotham.

"Hey! Hey!" The older man had called, getting out of his car and approaching the three of them.

Tim turned and saw his father marching towards them, "Shit. It's my father."

Bruce had turned to face Mr. Drake.

"Tim! I know that's you!" He yelled.

Dick stepped in front of Tim, "What does he want?" Dick asked Tim.

"I don't know... just, let me talk to him."

Tim stepped forward and took off his mask. His dad slowed and a look of shock passed over his face.

"Father, listen, I-"

"No, no I don't want to hear it!" Mr. Drake snapped. "Come with me, we're going home!"

The group could feel Tim's heartbreak. They could feel the sadness, the betrayal.

Bruce was honestly surprised that _this_ was the worst day of Tim's life. Of all the days Tim had gotten beaten to a pulp or pushed past his physical and mental limits? Out of all of those days, the day he had to leave? Bruce was honoured that it had meant that much to him.

They were whipped out of the memory and they all felt like they got some sort of psychic whiplash.

Everyone looked around at each other, and especially Tim, who seemed alright.

"That wasn't too bad, actually," Tim said.

Dick squeezed Tim's shoulder. "Well, who's next?" Dick asked.

The pool decided it was Dick's turn.

They were plunged into a circus ring, to no one's surprise. It was the night his parents were killed right in front of him, a lot like Bruce.

It was the sudden change in Dick's feelings that hurt everyone the most. The exhilaration of soaring through the air and then the sudden dread, the absolute horror. Sadness and grief beyond imagining.

They watched a younger Dick Grayson kneel beside his parents' bodies and sob into his hands.

The memory sped up with a blur as he was questioned by the police, and then it all stopped with a hand on his shoulder.

"Hey, kid," A slightly younger-looking Bruce was there, and then the memory ended.

Once again they were released from it with what seemed excessive force.

"You alright Grayson?" Damian asked.

Dick wiped a few stray tears from his eyes, "Yeah, I'm alright."

"So... what's gonna be yours Damian? The day you were born?" Tim asked teasingly.

"If you keep up this attitude Timothy, _yours_ is going to be the day you were born," Damian quipped back.

Then they were suddenly propelled into Damian's mind.

They were out in the desert, Talia was there. Damian was dressed up in his robin gear.

"So you're the new Robin?" Talia asked suspiciously.

"Yep," Damian replied, popping the p. "The best one yet I'm certain."

"And what of your mission?" Talia asked with a glower.

"Well... I have a new mission now. To be the best Robin, and then the best Batman," Damian replied. He was so proud of himself, so happy.

Talia shook her head, "You must finish your mission, Damian! You must destroy the Batman, destroy Gotham!"

Damian hesitated, "But... it's not really as bad as you always said. There are good people there, dad is- Bruce is-"

"Enough! You carry compassion, love even, for him?!"

"Yes!" Damian shouted back. "I'm not destroying Gotham or my father!"

Talia looked at him with cold eyes, "Then you are no son of mine. No grandson of Ra's Al Ghul. Leave now and do not dare come back. I am ashamed to be your mother."

Damian's eyes welled up with tears. "But- mother!"

"No, leave!" She snapped.

Just then a shadow swung in from above and landed in between Damian and Talia. It was Bruce.

He looked at Talia and simply shook his head in disappointment and then he turned to Damian.

"Let's go home, kid," Bruce said. He picked Damian up like a small child, which he was, and shot his grappling gun at the plane flying above. Damian cried the whole way home.

They were whipped out once again. Damian was crying in the pool. Jason was the closest to him and wrapped his arm around the kid.

"It's alright Damian, we're all here," Jason said quietly.

"Th-th-thanks, Todd," Damian said through hiccuping breaths.

Dick looked at Bruce and Jason, "So, I guess we all know what we're getting into with you two, right?" Dick looked at Bruce, "The night your parents died." He looked at Jason, "And the day you died, right?"

"No." Jason and Bruce said at the same time.

Tim narrowed his eyebrows, "Wait, what? Jason?"

"I mean, yeah, it was bad, but there's one that was worse, there's actually a few..." Jason trailed off. "I wonder which one it'll choose."

"Bruce?" Tim asked.

"I've made my peace with what happened that night, it led me to all of you," Bruce looked at his boys with a small smile. "There are still other losses that I... have yet to properly deal with."

Before Dick could ask what Bruce was talking about, they were launched into a memory.

Bruce was pacing in the Batcave, Alfred was behind him.

"I don't understand, he said he was looking for his birth mother, why is he in Ethiopia?" Bruce questioned.

"His vitals suggest he might be unconscious," Alfred said. Bruce stared at the screen pinpointing Jason's location on a map. "Clearly, Master Wayne, you are concerned. Why not go there yourself?"

Bruce shook his head, "He doesn't think I trust him. Going there, interrupting his personal mission? I'm not sure that's gonna help my case."

"Master Wayne, he will forgive you your concern," Alfred said.

Bruce took a breath and nodded, "Is the fuel in the jet full?"

"Yes."

Bruce ran into it and turned it on. He flipped the switch that opened the secret hangar door in the roof. He put on the cloaking device and flew off at supersonic speeds. Everyone could feel his uneasiness, his anxiety, his fear.

About half-way through his journey there, Bruce got an alert on the screen of the bat-plane. Jason was awake, and he wasn't in good shape.

"Please, hang in there kid, please," Bruce urged the plane faster.

Soon the plane landed and Bruce was frantic, Jason was barely alive, he was losing a lot of blood, his skull was fractured in a dozen different places, most of his ribs were broken... he felt sick.

He sprinted towards the warehouse that Jason was in, and he was so close. Then it blew up.

His vision blacked out for a moment as he was thrown back. But the moment he could see, he stood up and ran forward.

"Jason!" He shouted. "Jason!" Bruce desperately dug through the rubble until he saw a hand. He froze. Everyone could feel the horror, the guilt clawing up, the denial. "No..." He carefully unveiled the body covered in soot and rubble. It was Jason.

He was still so young, only 15 years old. His body was small. He was covered in blood. His head was... Bruce was horrified. If he had gotten here a moment sooner. If he hadn't been so concerned with what Jason had thought of him, he could have been here to save his life.

Bruce knew he was dead, but he reached out to Jason's neck to look for a pulse. There was none.

He cradled the cold body of his _son_ to his chest and sobbed. Everyone watching was... shocked.

"I'm sorry Jason, I failed you, I'm sorry."

The memory flashed to Bruce kneeling in front of a makeshift grave in the desert. He gripped a handful of sand and let it slip through his fingers. Then he was back in Batcave.

Alfred was waiting there with a confused look on his face as Bruce got off the plane alone.

"I... I lost him, Alfred," Bruce's voice wobbled as he spoke. "I lost Jason."

Bruce broke down once again and they were thrown from the memory.

Jason was staring at Bruce with an unreadable expression, but Dick understood.

"Jason? Just... stay calm alright, it's-"

Jason lunged towards Bruce, fists raised and ready to strike. Luckily Dick was somewhat expecting that and managed to hold him back.

"You hypocritical son of a-"

"Jason!" Dick shouted. "Calm down! We're here for Alfred, okay? You can fight later!"

Jason shoved Dick off him and went back to lean against the wall where he was, his cutting gaze never leaving Bruce for a second.

Bruce was staring at Jason with a mixture of sadness, regret, and guilt.

No one had time to hash things out any further because then they were plunged into the confusing hellscape that was Jason's mind.

Jason was sitting in front of a fireplace reading the letters that his dead father had written to him. The letters that had been kept from him, to manipulate him.

"_I took a job for the penguin, little did I know he wasn't looking for a henchman, he was looking for a fall guy_." Jason's eyes scanned the words written on the letter. He put it down and his hands shook. The memory flashed to the day his father got arrested when he was 9.

Jason's eyes flashed red with anger and he stood up and grabbed his mask and gun.

The memory jumped to him walking out of smoke ominously towards the Penguin. He raised his gun at the man.

"Come on now hood? Are we really going to pretend that you're going to pull that trigger?" Cobblepot taunted.

Jason laughed darkly. "Oh I will, but first-" Jason reached up and undid the clasp that made sure his mask didn't come off. "I need you to know why."

Jason removed the mask and Cobblepot's eyes widened. "Oh you foolish boy! Jason Todd. You've gone and thrown away Batman's identity along with your own!"

"That's alright because I'm done with the catch and release," Jason growled. "For every life you ruin, five more get destroyed. You killed my father, consider this recompense."

Cobblepot's eyes widened as he realized Jason was going to go through with it.

BANG! Blood splattered everywhere and suddenly Jason found himself in that dark room again and he heard the Joker's laugh.

"You want to hear a joke?! You'll just die! HAHAHA..." Jason pushed himself off the ground and when he stood he was back in the first memory, standing on the edge of a building in Gotham just a few moments after he had shot The Penguin in the head. He lept off the roof gracefully, trying to land on the invisible home-base Bizzaro had made for them, but he was intercepted.

He landed hard on the rooftop and Bruce was standing over him. Jason stood up and got ready to fight and the memory flashed to Jason kneeling next to a dug-up, empty grave of Willis Todd and screaming at nothing at all. That was the same noise he made when he charged at Batman.

Bruce ducked Jason's charge and was just about to connect a kick to Jason's ribs when the memory flashed to the Joker hitting Jason hard in the ribs with a crowbar.

Then Bruce punched Jason in the face, but again, before the blow landed the memory flashed back to the Joker cracking his skull with the crowbar. Then Bruce picked Jason up by his shirt.

"I was a fool for ever believing in you," Bruce growled out.

The memory flashed to the Joker taunting a half-dead Jason. "You think Batman is coming for you? You think he cares? You think he _believes_ in you?"

"I've never seen you hit the Joker that hard," Jason said with a bloody smile. "And you _hate_ him."

Bruce reacted badly to that and punched him in the head again, and again the memory flashed to the Joker bringing down the crowbar on the back of Jason's head.

Then it skipped forward a bit, to when the only friends Jason had made since he died get sucked into a wormhole going who knows where.

"Artemis! B!" Jason shouted desperately. He knelt down and held his head as his heart broke. Everyone could feel his loss and grief, but then who else appeared behind him? Jason turned just in time for Bruce to deliver an uppercut that sent him flying backward.

He very briefly lost consciousness and the memory flashed to Jason underwater. Alfred's voice was in his ear, "Jason, I can see that you are conscious, I urge you to surface now." But Jason didn't, he dove deeper and cut Bruce out of the Batmobile and brought them both up to the surface.

Jason successfully revived Bruce, who sputtered out the water from his lungs as he woke up. Then the memory flashed to Jason taking his first breath after being brought back to life. He choked on the water before resurfacing in Talia's arms. Jason's voice spoke in the background, "Not everyone wants to be alive."

Then all of a sudden, another memory tried to surface, but it couldn't, then he was in the Thousand Acres of All where he had to give up a memory. The memory of Bruce holding him as he slept on the couch when he was sick.

"You can take back your memories now that you have passed the test," the voice of the gatekeeper spoke.

The other's Jason was with took theirs back gladly, but not Jason. "Keep it."

The memory followed Jason and one of the women he was with.

"What were you like before coming here, Todd," she asked.

Jason looked down sadly, "I lived a lot like I died... alone."

Then it showed that same woman, later on, stabbing Jason through the chest with a red blade.

"The thing about the blood blade is that it only captures corrupt souls inside. If you use it on an innocent soul... then you get trapped inside it instead," Jason said with a slight grin as the woman disappeared into the sword. "You made the same mistake as everyone, I'm not evil, I'm just practical as hell."

Then the memory flashed back to just after Jason saved Bruce from drowning.

"Ha! You can't get rid of me that easy," Jason said. He was happy he managed to save his mentor/father figure.

Bruce put a hand on the boy's shoulder. "If you ever leave, it'll be your choice, not mine." Then the memory went back to the night Jason killed the Pengiun where Batman dragged Jason by his shirt across the roof, saying those very words back to him. "I once told you, that if you ever left, it would be your choice, not mine, well-"

Batman was cut off by an arrow to the side, shot by Roy. The archer came to Jason's side and helped him up. Then Bruce's voice echoed in Jason's memories "Roy is dead. I'm sorry Jason."

Then the memory skipped to later that night. Jason was standing in front of the mirror in Roy's apartment where he was crashing for the time being. He had taken his shirt off and was looking with a painful familiarity at the massive bruises covering his body. The memory went back to the night Jason died. Just before his final moment. His heart was barely beating, he was bleeding out, about to be blown up.

"'M sorry, Bruce... 'm sorry, I... failed."

If the Bat-family thought that the whiplash from the other memories was bad, this was exponentially worse.

Jason stood there, nearly paralyzed with excruciating pain. They all were for a moment, but it was Dick and Bruce who recovered first, and Dick wasn't happy at all.

"Bruce," Dick said with a dangerously low voice. "You tell me right now you didn't do that. You tell me right now that what we saw wasn't what really happened." Dick was getting closer and closer to Bruce. "You tell me, that you didn't say to him that you shouldn't have taken him in! That you didn't believe in him!" Dick was almost on him. "You tell me that you didn't nearly kill him before asking him why he did it!"

Tim then jumped on Dick, "Grayson, just stop! You weren't there, you don't get to judge."

Tim and Dick started to fight with each other as Bruce tried to separate them. But Damian, who was still in the tight grip of Jason, simply stared at the older man who was staring at nothing at all.

"Jason?" Damian asked carefully. "Jason, you alright?" Jason didn't look at Damian, but he shook his head ever so slightly. "Hey! You three! Stop fighting, Jason's not okay! This isn't about you!"

Tim, Dick, and Bruce all froze and turned to see that Jason was just staring into the water blankly. He finally let go of Damian and hopped out of the pool. He walked right up to the troll-monster-thing and shot it about six times in the head. It fell down, dead.

Jason then walked up to the cage that Alfred was being kept in and shot off the lock.

"Come on Alfred, let's get you back," Jason said quietly.

"Master Jason?" Alfred asked with a hint of confusion as Jason pulled him to his feet effortlessly. "Where are the others?"

Jason sighed, "They're all here, just bickering. Can you walk?"

"Yes, I am quite unharmed," Alfred replied.

Jason nodded, "Well, when they're all done fighting, tell them I said this was fun, but next time, leave me out of it," he spoke tersely.

He then left the cave without another word. Alfred followed the shouting to where he saw Bruce struggling to contain Dick while Tim and Drake were in a yelling match.

Alfred cleared his throat loudly and they all froze.

"Enough," he announced. "I do not know what is going on here, but I must insist it end now." Everyone, even Bruce looked at him guiltily. "Now, let's go home."


	3. Saving the Family pt 2 - Damian

Damian Wayne was a lot of things, but late? That was not one of them. Bruce was pacing in the halls of the house. Damian was supposed to have come back from his patrol over two hours ago. Tim and Dick were out there now looking for him, Bruce was almost ready to go out as well when Dick came back into the manor looking worried.

"Hey, Bruce," Dick said, still dressed as Nightwing. "I found this near where his last signal came from..."

He handed Bruce the Robin sigil that was always pinned onto Damian's chest. Those things don't easily fall off, and so Bruce knew that someone had to have taken it from him.

"Any sign of a struggle?" Bruce asked.

Dick shook his head, "No, not even a spot of blood. The area hadn't been cleaned, which means-"

"Either he didn't fight back, or he was drugged," Tim interrupted as he walked into the Batcave. He held up the tip of a dart in his hand. "I found this in the alley below the rooftop."

Bruce's hands were now shaking, "I want everyone on this. Call everyone you know."

Dick and Tim nodded.

"I'm on that," Tim started. "Dick, get back out there and see if you can find anything else. I'll put Barbara on the comms when I get in touch."

Dick nodded and left while Tim sat down at the massive computer system and got to work.

Bruce suited up and Alfred came down to see what was being done.

"Is there anything I can do Master Bruce?" Alfred asked.

Bruce shook his head a little, "Can you start coming up with a list of people who would have the means and the motives to take Damian?"

"That'll be an awfully long list, but I'll get right on it."

Alfred left and Bruce got into the Batmobile.

Tim's voice spoke into the ears of most of the Batfamily and a few others.

"Okay, this is a comms check. Oracle?"

"Gottcha."

"Batman?"

"Check."

"Nightwing?"

"Check."

"Birds of Prey?"

"Check."

"Check."

"Okay, we all know that Robin was taken from 66th and 14th, we don't know who took him or why. I've looked at the security cameras and there's nothing. This was planned perfectly, meaning they're smart and dangerous. Everyone be careful."

"Hey, has anyone got a hold of Red Hood?" Dick asked.

"No," Tim replied. "I'm not sure he's even in Gotham."

...

Jason was sitting in his favourite diner in Gotham city looking out the window as he sipped on a milkshake. Then he saw the new Robin, Damian. Jason had mixed feelings about the kid. On one hand, he was Bruce's actual son which brought up a lot of long unresolved resentment towards Bruce for Jason. On the other hand, he was maybe the only person Jason knew that could even remotely understand what it's like to come back from the dead and even then not really.

He watched the kid perch on a rooftop nearby, wondering what he was up to, when he quickly reached up and grabbed at his neck before slouching over.

Jason's eyes widened, who was making a move on the little Robin? He left money on the table and went out to his motorcycle. As quietly as he could, he silently followed the kidnappers. They were good. They seemed to have rehearsed this many times because they didn't make any of the usual criminal mistakes. When Damian was handed off from team to team they would say nothing to each other, therefore not allowing Jason to get any idea of where they would finally end up taking him. They also kept Damian very sedated, which was smart. The kid was a force to be reckoned with and not someone who went down quietly.

After a while of trailing the kidnappers, it seemed that they settled on a warehouse just outside the city limits. Jason briefly toyed with the idea of calling Dick, but then he pushed it away. He didn't want to see anything happen to the kid, but he also didn't want to have to see any more of his old... _family_.

So he waited, he watched, he listened. It didn't seem like they were doing anything to Damian in there. Hell, they hadn't even taken off his mask. After a couple hours, Jason was getting tired of just sitting there in a newly falling snow.

He started to formulate a plan. He didn't have his suit with him, didn't even have any guns, but he had his leather jacket and his helmet, that was going to have to be good enough.

He figured that his best bet was going to be trying to get the kid out without much fighting, which meant stealth. He moved the motorcycle to one of the entrances to the underground water drainage system and made his way back to the warehouse area from there. Jason quietly snuck past the guards that patrolled the perimeter and scaled the side of the building. He peeked into the window and saw that it was divided into several rooms. The one he was looking into now was seemingly a breakroom for the henchmen. A couple of guys were in there, they didn't look too professional, maybe Jason could take them, but he wasn't going to risk it.

Jason climbed around and looked into another window, there were crates everywhere, but no sign of anyone. Jason carefully climbed through the window and gripped the only weapon he had, a knife, tightly. He put his ear to the only door that led out of the room and didn't hear anything. Cautiously, he opened the door and looked down a fairly long hallway. There was another open door to his left which was the breakroom. He rolled silently past that door and waited for a moment to see if they saw him, but their conversation continued on undisturbed.

He tried the next door he found, it was unlocked and silent on the other side. He opened it a crack and saw that there was a video camera on the side of the room, but nothing else. He shut the door and moved silently across the hall, there were only two more doors. Luckily, upon carefully opening the door he saw Damian, but he also saw a doctor give him an injection of something. Jason assumed it was more sedative.

Jason silently watched from the crack in the door as the doctor took off his gloves and walked toward the door. Jason stood right next to the door, and as the doctor came out of the room, Jason clamped his hand down on the man's mouth and nose and dragged him back into the room. After a minute, the man was unconscious. Jason looked around the room and saw more of the needles that he had seen the doctor give Damian.

He jabbed one into the doctor's neck before approaching Damian. Jason was surprised to see that Damian wasn't actually unconscious.

"Kid, can you hear me?" Jason whispered.

Damian's eyes moved to him lazily, but he didn't say a word. Jason figured that the drug was probably a sedative mixed with a strong paralytic.

"I'm gonna get you out of here okay? Don't worry," Jason said while untying the boy. His limp body fell forward onto Jason's chest. Jason pocketed the rope, he might need it later. Climbing out a second-story window while holding a kid wasn't going to be easy.

Jason picked Damian up and slung him over his shoulder for the time being. He poked his head out of the door to see if anyone was in the hallway and there wasn't anyone. He wondered why these guys were so lax on security, they kidnapped Robin, the sidekick of Batman. Why wouldn't they be prepared to face him?

...

Damian had been missing for about four hours. Bruce had come back to the Batcave after patrolling the city and finding nothing. The others were still out there looking.

Bruce and Tim were sitting there flipping through profiles of people who Alfred had said were possible suspects when Dick came flying into the Batcave holding a folder.

"I found this, they left it on the roof where they took him."

Bruce opened it and was shocked. The first page was an image of Batman and Robin, but it was Grayson. In a blue marker, Dick's head was circled and labelled 'jumpy bird'. The next image was of Batman and Jason's Robin. Jason's was labelled 'angry bird', but it was crossed out and 'dead bird' was written above. Next was Tim's Robin, titled 'nerdy bird'. Finally, there was a photo of Damian in a dark room, tied up to a chair, head hanging limp. The marker labelled him 'baby bird'. On the last page in the file was a hand-written note.

_Dear Batman,_

_We have your Baby Bird. If you come for him, boom. Fried birdy._

_We want you to fix a problem of ours, the Red Hood._

_Bring him to the roof, and we'll give you back your missing Birdy,_

_Sincerely,_

_Yours._

Bruce glanced at Dick, and then to Tim. "You said you didn't know if Jason was in Gotham?"

Dick raised an eyebrow at Bruce, "Seriously, you're actually thinking about this?"

"I'm not going to hand over Jason to some maniac, but... maybe if we just buy some time," Bruce said.

Tim was looking over security cameras, "Bruce, Jason's pretty good at hiding, if he doesn't want to be found, it could take a while."

"And, I think we're all ignoring the fact that we can't actually see Damian's face here. How do we know that that's actually him?" Dick questioned.

Tim re-examined the image, "You have a point Grayson, but what's a little more interesting is that they know that Jason died, but they don't know that he's the Red Hood. Sort of implies that this isn't someone we've crossed before. It could narrow it down pretty far."

"Can you-"

"On it Bruce," Tim said, getting straight to work pulling up profiles of people who have crossed Jason since he came back.

"Dick, I need you to find Jason, at least tell him what's going on. I'm not going to waste time forcing him to help," Bruce said.

...

Jason was in the process of climbing back up the tower of crates when a great idea hit him, burn the place down. Once he got to the top of the crates, Damian still tucked safely in his arms, he grabbed the rope he had taken. There wasn't as much as Jason had hoped. Only about seven feet of total length. Looking out of the window, Jason saw at least a twenty-foot drop. Usually, he wouldn't have much hesitation with jumping from that height, but usually he had his hands free to roll the moment he hit the ground.

He tied the rope to the frame of the window, hoping it would hold. He lit his lighter and chucked it into the warehouse. He had to use one arm to keep a hold on Damian, leaving only one hand to slide down the rope. It was slowly tearing the skin on his palm quite excruciatingly, but he had to keep going. He wasn't going to let anything happen to this kid, though, whether that impulse was because he actually cared about Damian or because he wanted to rescue Damian in the way that he had wished Bruce had saved him was still up for debate.

Jason barely made it to the end of the rope when an explosion rocked the building. The crates in the warehouses were apparently packing quite the explosive punch. Jason was forced to let go of the rope. He hit the ground a bit harder than he was expecting to, but he didn't hurt himself much. He got a better grip on Damian and ran toward the entrance to the underground drainage tunnels.

He managed to get there without much of an issue, he put down Damian for a moment so he could stretch his already sore shoulders.

Unfortunately, Jason didn't have a phone, or really any way of contacting the bat-family. He was going to have to get the kid all the way back to the manor.

Jason knelt down by Damian who seemed to be more out of it than he was before. He was muttering something in Arabic under his breath, Jason couldn't tell what he was saying, but it didn't sound too panicked or scared, so there was at least that.

"I don't know if you can hear me, but we're almost there," Jason said. He watched the kid for a moment and saw that he was shivering. He took off his leather jacket, which was maybe not the best idea in hindsight because that was the only piece of clothing he had on him that had any bulletproofing, and put it on Damian. It was way too big, but the kid looked... sort of adorable.

Jason then picked him up again, carrying him in his arms this time.

...

"Bruce! Look at this!" Tim shouted from the cave.

Bruce quickly went to stand behind the chair Tim was sitting in. "What is it, Tim?"

"There was just a massive explosion at a warehouse just outside of Gotham. It's owned by a former drug-dealer from Crime Alley."

"Former drug-dealer?" Bruce questioned.

"Yeah, until he started dealing to kids and Jason shut his entire operation down, last week."

Bruce's pleasure that they finally had a lead was suddenly hampered by the remembrance of the threat the note had issued.

He swiftly and silently put his mask back on. "I'm going there, either he escaped or-" Bruce's voice caught in his throat. He couldn't even entertain the possibility.

"Has anyone seen Red Hood?" Tim asked over the comms

"No, and there's nothing on any of the police channels either which seems odd to me. Usually, he's pretty active," Barbara replied.

"So, you think he's involved in this somehow?" Dick asked.

"Either that or he's not in Gotham, but..." Tim trailed off.

"But what Tim?" Dick asked.

"I just saw him the other day, asked him if he wanted to come over for movie night, he said he'd think about it, but I haven't seen him since then," Tim said.

There was silence on the line, "Tim, he didn't do this."

"I know but... well, where the hell is he?" Tim asked.

Then Bruce spoke. "If Jason was involved in this-" Dick and Tim could hear a shaky breath, "-I'm done with second chances."

...

Jason made it to the motorcycle, but he was starting to foresee an issue. There were now goons everywhere.

"Alright kid, this might get a little messy," Jason muttered. His words were more to himself than to Damian, but he hoped that they were at least some sort of comfort.

Jason turned on his engine, and suddenly about 40 pairs of eyes turned to him. He quickly darted off and was unsurprised when the telltale sound of bullets firing followed closely behind them. He suddenly realizes what an excellent investment those bullet-proof tires were.

The bike roars as he urges it faster. He occasionally glances in the side mirror, only to find that they get closer every time. He's within the city limits of Gotham now, and he's surprised he hasn't found any Bat-themed vigilantes yet.

...

Bruce rocketed to the burning warehouse, lept out of the batmobile, and grabbed a nearby goon all in one fell swoop.

"Talk. Now. Where's Robin?" Bruce growled.

The man was about three seconds away from shiting himself, but he stumbled out with an answer nonetheless. "The-the R-r-ed Hood, he-he blew up the w-warehouse! I don't know- I don't know if-" Bruce dropped the man, the implication in his words were clear as day to Bruce. Jason had probably heard the had been threatened and went to wipe out the threat... but he killed Damian.

The rage that burned through him was something Bruce hadn't felt in a long time. Jason better wish that he doesn't catch him.

...

So far, so bad. That actually pretty much summed up Jason's entire life thus far. He had gotten skimmed by a bullet by his hip, but other than that, he's been relatively unharmed. Bruce should be happy, Jason figures that he probably hasn't killed anyone all night... well... except for the goons in the warehouse that blew up... and those guys in the first two cars that managed to catch up with him... and- it doesn't matter. Damian was still asleep on his chest, asleep and not dead, _that_ was the only thing that mattered at the moment.

Jason needed to lose the thugs, there were too many of them. He had been lucky this far, to only get a graze, if he kept trying to outrun them until he ran into a Bat-person, he wasn't going to make it.

The closest safe place Jason could think of way under the old boys home. Jason hadn't been there in a while, but it had been his secret lair for a good few months, and he knew it had a bed and some medical supplies. It didn't have a suit, but Jason could make due.

He whipped around a sharp corner and Damian's head lolled to the side a bit. Then Jason heard his muttering, "I'm sorry dad... Wasn't my fault... Sorry."

Jason had probably muttered those same words, half dead and at the Joker's feet, more times than he probably remembers.

"Don't be sorry Damian, you're alright, I have you," Jason said. He was trying his best to be reassuring. If someone had been there to tell him that it wasn't his fault? It would have meant the world to him.

He managed to lose them for one second, and that was all it took. Jason quickly swerved into the nearest alleyway, turned off the lights, and hid the bike behind the dumpster. He removed his helmet and hid it there as well. He knew that there was at least a 50% chance that they would both be gone by the time he came back, but whatever, there were more pressing issues.

Damian seems to be gaining back more muscle function as he is more actively attempting to hold onto Jason, but he still hasn't seemed to have had any lucid moments. They must've given him some of the good stuff.

Jason waits until he's seen what he assumes are all of the men that had been following them fly by before leaving the alleyway. His hip is bothering him, he won't lie. Each time one of Damian's still fairly limp limbs bumps against it he feels vaguely like he's going to vomit, but he pushes it down.

The hour-long, anxiety-inducing walk to Ma Gunn's boys home gives Jason some time to plan out his priorities.

Priority number one: get in touch with someone from the so-called Bat-family.

Priority number two: make sure Damian gets to said Bat-family unharmed.

Priority number three: find out whoever is behind this and kill them.

Yeah, that sounds good to Jason.

He made it to his secret lair at about 5 in the morning. The sun was just barely starting to peek up, to Jason (who had not slept in an obscenely long time) it was extremely insulting.

He put Damian down on the bed and sat down, or tried to. The burning pain in his hip told him to do it a bit more carefully this time.

He grabbed one of his burner phones and dialled the number for the Wayne house. Bruce picked up, and he wasn't a happy camper.

...

Bruce had gone to the warehouse, scoured the city and eventually come back to the manor, he had called Tim and Dick to meet him in the cave.

"So, we're really doing this?" Dick asked. "We're really thinking that Jason-" Dick couldn't even bring himself to say it.

Tim's head was low, but he nodded, "Everything we know would suggest... that Jason is at least involved in this. There's nothing confirmed about Damian."

Bruce didn't say a word, but when the phone rang, he gripped it with a tight fist.

"Yes?" He answered sharply.

"Hey- Jesus, what's with that? Listen, I just-"

"Jason," Bruce gritted out. Dick and Tim whipped around to look at the phone in shock. "You better hope that I don't find you. I will-"

"What? I don't know what the hell is going on over there, but I got Damian and-" Jason suddenly stopped. "Shit." Bruce could hear rustling before Jason's voice continued in a hushed whisper. "Listen B, maybe here isn't as secure as I thought. Crap. I..." Bruce could hear a deep breath. "Damian's okay. They drugged him up pretty good, but other than that there's not a scratch on him."

"You have him?" Bruce asked, shocked.

"Yes, what the hell did I just say?" Jason huffed quietly. "Do you got any idea who's after him?"

Bruce froze in guilt, he had been so willing to accept that Jason had killed the boy... how could he?

"It doesn't matter for now. Where are you?" Bruce asked.

"I'm..." Jason trailed off. He had some hesitations about revealing one of his secret hideouts from Bruce, but whatever, this wasn't about him. "I'm in the basement of Ma Gunn's boys home."

"We'll be right there." Then Jason hung up.

Dick and Tim turned to Bruce expectingly. "Jason has Damian, I don't know how, and I don't know why."

Dick turned to Tim, "I told you, he might have a slightly differently leaning moral compass than we do, but he has never murdered someone without reason." Tim and Bruce felt guilty, and Dick could clearly tell. "Whatever, we can talk about this later, let's just go get Damian."

"I'll take the Batmobile, you two take the Batcopter," Bruce said. The three of them embarked, not before briefly explaining the situation to Alfred, who was as worried as they all were.

"Bring Master Damian back safely, along with yourselves," Alfred said over the comms.

...

It had been about 15 minutes from when Jason had called the gang, and he was starting to feel like something was decidedly _N__ot Right_. He grabbed the gun in his hip holster and walked to the hidden stairwell. He heard voices, and not familiar ones.

He quickly went back to where Damian was laying on the bed and knelt beside him.

"Kid, Damian, wake up." He didn't even stir. Damn, Jason's hip was gonna kill him in the morning. He slung him over his shoulder and pointed the gun forward and tried to quietly make it out of there.

Unfortunately, when has anything Jason's ever done go according to plan. Two men appeared in front of him. Jason shot them immediately. He didn't have the time or strength to even attempt to subdue them without lethal force. He moved on quickly and was disappointed but not surprised to find out that there were many more people here than he would have thought.

In the middle of the intense fire-fight, Damian managed to come to, which was not ideal.

He forced himself out of Jason's arm, the one that wasn't holding the gun. Jason managed to catch him before he could fall to the floor and crack his head open. This effort left him exposed and unfortunately cost him a bullet in his shoulder. Great. Damian better be able to walk, because carrying him now would be a nightmare.

They were against a wall, shielded for the moment against the raining fire of bullets.

"Todd," Damian began as sharply as he could while still being fairly out of it. "I demand to know what's going on..." He trailed off as he saw Jason's quick breathing and the bloody hand he had pressed to his shoulder.

"Don't worry about it Damian, Bruce is on his way, we just need to hold them off." Jason paused and leaned around the corner, hitting a few more of the guys shooting at them. "Do you think you can walk?" Jason asked. He shot off a few more bullets. When he didn't hear a response he looked at Damian to see that he was just staring off into space. "Typical," Jason muttered. Where the hell was Bruce? He knew Bruce didn't give a crap about him, but Damian? Damn, leaving you real son to die? That's real cold, even for bruce.

He knew they had to get out of there. He couldn't rely on Bruce to come and get them, and even if he was on his way, they might not make it any further than this if Jason didn't push past the pain in his body and stand up.

He'd felt worse, when the Joker had broken half of his ribs, cracked open his skull, snapped his femur, and he'd been able to stand up then.

He suppressed a scream as he pulled Damian up with him. He shot the people in front of him with no remorse and made it back to the main room. He put on a spare helmet, reloaded his guns and set a timer on some spare C4 he had lying around. He ran out of the home and stole the nearest car.

Things were momentarily going well. Jason reached over to Damian in the passenger's seat and did up his seat belt. Just in case.

Jason opened his flip phone again to call Bruce.

"Jason! Is Damian with you?! Is he alright?!" Bruce demanded. Jason glanced over at Damian who seemed to be coming to.

"Yeah, we made it out, Damian's just coming to," Jason said. He put the phone down on speakerphone. "Damian, kid. You awake?"

Damian groaned, "Yes," he spoke. He glanced to Jason. "Todd, you are bleeding quite profusely."

"Damian?" Bruce asked from the phone.

"Father?" Damian asked, staring at the phone in confusion. "I demand to know what is going on."

"Well, it's a long story, an old friend of Jason's-"

"SHIT!" Jason shouted. Even though he had just buckled Damian in, Jason still threw his arm across Damian as they were suddenly T-boned.

Jason's arm didn't do much protecting as it was promptly flung out of the windshield with the rest of him.

Damian lost consciousness for a few moments. When he opened his eyes again, the phone was still beside him, Bruce's voice blaring.

"Damian! Jason! What's going on?!"

Damian groaned and looked to where Jason should have been. "Jason?" He whispered as his eyes followed the trail of broken glass from the windshield about fifteen feet forward to where Jason was struggling to get to his feet. Damian tried to undo his seat belt, but it was jammed. "Hood! I'm stuck!" Damian called.

"I'm coming kid," Jason groaned.

"Oh I don't think so," an ominous voice spoke. The man stepped into Jason's line of sight, "Remember me, Hood?"

Jason rolled his eyes, "Marco, what a drama queen." He managed to stand, but he was a little woozy.

"Me? Dramatic? You're the one who killed **half of my men!**" He shouted in rage.

Back at the car, the passenger door was opened by two thugs who cut the seatbelt off and wrenched Damian from the car. Damian was shouting in the struggle for the control of his limbs.

Jason looked toward Damian and then back at Marco. "Listen, just let the kid go, alright? You don't need to piss off Batman anymore, you got me."

"Tsk, tsk, tsk. Oh Hood," Marco said as he walked behind Jason and pulled him to his knees, a gun pressed to the red helmet. It wasn't bulletproof, it seemed Marco knew that. "I've got plans for the Robin. I heard about what Joker did with the other one, Angry Bird, I called him. It seemed marvellous, I will seek to create it, maybe draw it out a bit longer." Damian struggled harder, though it made no difference. Marco could feel Jason's muscles tense. "But why do you even care about the Baby Bird in the first place? Surely you, Red Hood, The Scourge of the Underworld, has had more than your fair share of encounters with the big bad bat!"

Jason had a sick grin on his face, though no one could see it. He was trying to psyche himself up for what he was going to have to do.

"I care because _I_ was that Angry Bird, and that's my little brother, you sick bastard!" Jason shouted and in one quick movement, he stabbed himself with his knife through his shoulder and right into Marco's heart.

Damian went completely still for exactly one moment before he started thrashing as he watched Jason pull out the knife and fall to one knee.

"Hood! Hood! NO!" He shouted.

...

Bruce had made it to Ma Gunn's home for boys, but it had already burnt to a crisp. For a moment he thought that this time they were truly gone. The call from Jason just a few minutes later only temporarily quelled Bruce's terror. When Jason had shouted and then Bruce heard the tell-tale signs of steel warping and grating on concrete, then, for a moment, nothing.

"Boys?! Jason?! Damian?! What's going on?!" He was silent so he could hear what was going on as he traced the location of the call. He sent a signal to Dick and Tim to meet him there. He raced through the streets and was slightly relieved when he finally heard Damian.

"Jason?" Damian had whispered. Bruce heard movement, then, "Hood! I'm stuck!"

The shouting implied that Jason had been thrown from the car, Bruce felt sick.

"I'm coming kid," Jason said. Bruce could barely hear it, but he did. Jason and Damian were still alive. He pushed down the gas pedal a little further.

"Oh, I don't think so. Remember me, Hood?" A new man asked. Bruce was so close, please hold on, please.

"Marco, what a drama queen." Was Jason's witty response. At least the crash hadn't given him brain damage.

"Me dramatic? You're the one who killed **half of my men**!"

Then Bruce heard people take Damian from the car.

"Listen, just let the kid go, alright? You don't need to piss off Batman anymore, you got me," Jason said.

Bruce's heart was pounding. If Jason was going to get himself killed to protect Damian? He would still be losing a son.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk. Oh Hood," the man, Marco apparently, said. "I've got plans for the Robin. I heard about what Joker did with the other one, Angry Bird, I called him. It seemed marvellous, I will seek to create it, maybe draw it out a bit longer." Bruce was one minute away. One minute, please. "But why do you even care about the Baby Bird in the first place? Surely you, Red Hood, The Scourge of the Underworld, has had more than your fair share of encounters with the big bad bat!"

Please, please let them stay alive. Thirty seconds.

"I care because _I_ was that Angry Bird, and that's my little brother, you sick bastard!" Bruce heard Jason shout, and he knew something happened because then he heard the pained cry of Jason.

"Hood! Hood! NO!" Damian screamed.

Bruce was five seconds away.

"Get away from him now. Or I. Will. Kill. You," Bruce heard Jason growl. The sound of Damian being dropped followed.

Bruce pulled up and lept out of his car. He saw Jason kneeling in a pool of blood. His own blood, and the blood of the man on the ground behind him. Damian was running towards him, he was wearing Jason's leather jacket.

"Todd! You imbecile!" Damian said. But the insult was severely undercut by the fact that Damian was barely holding back sobs. Jason removed his helmet with a grimace, and God, he was so young. Bruce always forgot how young he was. Just 18 years old, and dying for the second time.

Bruce ran to their side, Damian briefly looked at Bruce, but Jason's eyes never left Damian.

"Are you okay?" Jason asked weakly.

Damian sniffled. "Yes."

"Good." Jason then looked at Bruce. "Hey B. I got him."

"I know Jason, I know. Just try to-" Jason fell into Bruce. "Just try to stay awake."

"It's okay B, I'm gonna be okay, I should have died a long time ago," Jason said.

Dick and Tim pulled up in the Bat-copter and ran out. They both froze when they saw Jason.

"Tim, get the medical supplies," Dick said. Tim didn't need to be told twice. Dick ran and knelt down beside Jason, trying to ignore the fact that he was kneeling in Jason's blood. "Hey Jay, just hang on, Tim's gonna come patch you up."

"Dick?" Jason rasped. "Get Damian out of here, he doesn't need to see this."

Dick glanced at Damian and then back at Jason. He brushed a hand through the younger kid's hair, "I love you, little brother. You rest now, okay?"

"Thanks, Dick."

Dick wrapped an arm around Damian and pulled him up.

"Put me down! Do something!" Damian shouted as he struggled against Dick.

"It's okay Damian, it's okay," Dick's voice was beginning to crack.

Tim came running out of the Batplane and saw the scene. He looked to Dick, who shook his head while tightly holding Damian. Tim quickly went to Jason's side.

"Jason, how much blood have you lost?" Tim asked frantically.

"Almost all of it, Tim. It's okay," Jason said. He gripped Tim's hand and Tim looked at him in shock. "Listen, you're a good kid. You deserved better from me, and I'm sorry."

"It's okay Jason. You've been a better brother than you think."

"Thanks, Tim. Give me a second with B?"

Tim stood and went to go stand farther away by Dick who was holding an inconsolable Damian.

"Jason, we can get blood, we can-"

"Stop, Bruce, just stop," Jason gasped.

"I'm sorry that I didn't get here fast enough," Bruce said.

"It's okay. I'm just glad that this time I'm not alone," Jason said. His eyes were starting to become unfocused. "Please don't bring me back."

Bruce nodded through teary eyes, "I love you Jason... my son."

"Love you too, dad."

Jason took a few more breaths, and Bruce felt the moment his heart stilled to a complete stop. He bowed his head and heard Damian's desperate pleas for Dick or Tim to help Jason.

Bruce carefully lifted Jason's limp body and brought it to the Batmobile.

He turned to his other sons, "Meet back at the Batcave."

Tim nodded solmnly as he got back on the Batplane. Dick carried Damian onto the plane.

It was silent, dead silent. Alfred was waiting when they all arrived back at the manor. He wasn't prepared for what he saw.

Alfred remembered the first day that Bruce had brought Jason home. He had been 12, and he was so stubborn. But Alfred saw a spark of brilliance in the child. The day he found Jason reading Alfred's old Shakespeare collection was one of the best days of Alfred's life.

Alfred rested and hand on the boy's cold cheek. "I hope wherever you are, it is free from your pain, Master Jason. We will miss you," Alfred said softly.

Damian had transferred from Dick's arms to Bruce's.

"I'm sorry, it's my fault!" Damian sobbed.

"It's not your fault," Bruce said.

"It is! He came to save me! He gave me his bulletproof jacket! He got shot catching me! He stabbed himself to kill the man that wanted me!" Dick and Tim looked at each other sadly.

"It's not your fault," Bruce repeated. "It's not your fault." Bruce stroked the back of Damian's head. "I'm sorry that this happened."

Alfred looked around at his grieving boys. "Master Bruce, take the boys upstairs while I clean up Master Jason."

Bruce looked at Alfred, his eyes were tired, filled with grief. "Why don't you take the boys, I... I'd like to do this."

Alfred nodded. He went to Tim as Dick led Damian upstairs.

Bruce took off his mask and cowl and got a wet cloth. He was wiping the blood off Jason's chest when Bruce felt- no. That wasn't possible. Jason was dead, Bruce wasn't feeling his breath on his neck, it was just a breeze.

Bruce had just finished carefully stitching up Jason's wounds when the impossible happened.

"Dad?" Jason whispered. It was so soft, that Bruce could have sworn that he was hearing things, but when he turned around, Jason was staring at him with confusion.

Bruce dropped the mug of coffee in his hand. He quickly went to Jason's side. "Jason, how?" Bruce gasped.

"Probably the remnants of the Lazarus Pit. I mean... I knew I healed pretty fast, but I wasn't expecting this," Jason said. He sat up and winced.

"What's wrong?" Bruce asked.

"I just feel really light-headed."

"That might have something to do with only having a couple drops of blood in you," Bruce said. "Luckily for you, I got some."

Bruce was about halfway into filling up a bag of his blood when Jason managed to stand on his own. He put a hand on Bruce's arm. "That's enough, really, I'm already feeling better."

Bruce nodded and got a new needle. he hung the bag on a rack that Jason then used to shuffle around the cave.

"Where's everyone?" Jason asked.

"Damian cried himself to sleep about half an hour ago. Dick and Tim fell asleep on the roof a little while ago. Do you want me to call them down here?" Bruce asked.

"No, not yet," Jason said. "I'll go talk to them once I'm done using your blood. Thanks for that by the way." Jason was promptly hugged.

"Please don't ever do that again," Bruce murmured into Jason's shoulder. "I love you."

Jason wasn't crying, really, he wasn't, his eyes were just really... wet. "Love you too dad," he said into Bruce's chest. "I'm... I don't know how I'm ever going to make up for everything I've done, but... I'd like to try."

"You're not the one that needs to. Everything that happened between us was just as much my fault as yours. I wasn't the father I should have been, and I'm sorry. I'd like to try to be better too."

Jason let go of the rack and pulled out the needle, the bag of blood hanging there was now empty. "I'd uh... I'd like that."

"Feeling better?" Bruce asked a moment after pulling away from their hug.

Jason nodded, "Yeah."

"Wanna get your brothers?"

"No, just, let them get some sleep first. I'll make them breakfast," Jason said with a small smile.

Bruce and Jason got changed into normal and not completely blood-soaked clothing and went upstairs. Bruce disabled Alfred's alarm clock and he and Jason caught up in the kitchen for the next few hours until Jason decided it was time to make pancakes.

Bruce helped a bit, he had to stir everything as both of Jason's shoulders still had holes in them.

Dick was the first one to come downstairs, and when he saw Bruce and Jason in the kitchen, talking and joking around like old times, he nearly fainted.

He carefully approached Jason, occasionally glancing disbelievingly at Bruce. Dick wasn't yet convinced that this wasn't a hallucination. Dick eventually placed a hand on Jason's arm.

"It's me you big moron," Jason said with a grin.

Dick enveloped him in a tight hug. "God, please never do anything like that again. I thought you were dead."

"I was dead. But I'm back... again."

"As I said, don't do it again," Dick said, his words were a little muffled as he was speaking into Jason's shirt.

Jason pulled back, "I made pancakes!" He did some jazz hands and that's when they heard a yawn.

Everyone whipped around to see Tim standing there, and then Tim, who hadn't yet looked up from the floor, looked up at saw them all standing there.

"Son of a-"

"Watch your language Timothy," Jason chided. Dick rolled his eyes and Bruce chuckled. Tim came right up to Jason, just like Dick had, just to make sure he wasn't still dreaming. He poked Jason in Bruce's neat stitches. "Ow!" Jason swatted Tim's hand away.

Tim looked at his hand in shock, and then back up at Jason. Then there was more hugging.

Then: "Master Jason?" Alfred's shaky voice spoke.

Jason smiled and he went over to Alfred. "Hey, Alfie. Sorry about the scare last night, but I made pancakes!"

"How?" Alfred gasped as he put a hand on Jason's cheek.

"Eh, I'm pretty sure Hell isn't ready to deal with me yet," Jason said with a grin.

Alfred shook his head, making the tears welling in his eyes to spill. "Well, whatever the reason, I am very grateful."

They ate and laughed and they were a family again, but Damian was still asleep. After another hour, Jason decided to go and talk to him.

"I'm gonna go say hi to Damian," Jason said with a quirked smile.

"Be careful, I think he has a sword under his pillow," Tim said in warning.

"Thanks, Tim," Jason said with a laugh. He walked up the stairs to Damian's room. He knocked on the door, but there was no answer. He turned the handle and opened it a crack to see that Damian was sitting in the dark, still in Jason's leather jacket.

"I don't want to join your party, Alfred. Don't you have any respect?" Damian said. His tone was absolutely scathing.

Jason stepped in further and sat on the other side of the bed so that their backs were touching. Damian realized that this was not Alfred, but his mind went next to Bruce.

"He was your _son_. If I had died would you still be laughing in the kitchen the next morning?" Damian questioned.

"Well, I think the whole point of me rescuing you was so that you didn't die. I'm pretty sure that's a-"

The moment Jason had spoke, and Damian realized that it _was_ Jason, he scrambled to his feet and ran around to stand in front of Jason.

No words were spoken, but Damian _leaped_ onto Jason's chest. He was only 11 and a half, but man was Damian a big kid. He damn near knocked Jason over.

Damian thought he had no more tears left for Jason Todd, he was wrong. Jason's shoulder was already soaked.

"Don't ever do that again!" Damian cried.

"Sorry, I scared you kid. I won't do it again," Jason said. He was rubbing reassuring circles on Damian's back.

"Thank you for coming to get me," Damian said.

Jason smiled at him and wiped away his tears for him. "Damian, I'll always come for you. I'm the only Robin that get's to die in a warehouse all alone."

Damian's glare at the mention of death released a few chuckles from Jason.

"Come on, I made pancakes downstairs," Jason said. He stood and saw that Damian was looking uncertain about standing up. "Your legs still a little tired?"

Damian nodded, "Yes, it seems my iron will has failed me."

Jason laughed. "Climb on my back. My arms are as good as noodles right now."

Damian jumped onto Jason's back and wrapped his arms around his neck. "What kind of pancakes?"

"Chocolate chip."

"Excellent, it is far superior to other flavours."

Jason laughed for the first time in a long time.


	4. Jason's Baby pt2

Bruce was still getting used to being a grampa, Jason had been staying at the Manor while he healed from his injuries and they had all been helping out looking after Emmett. At first, the kid would freak out if anyone but Jason held him, but after a while, he began to accept the rest of them. His favourite was Tim, which Dick was appalled by as he had wanted to be the fun uncle. He had also become much more talkative, and Tim was starting to understand what Jason meant when he said the boy reminded him of Dick.

Emmett thought everything was absolutely hilarious, and he would often bust out the chant of "silly, silly" whenever something that he wasn't expecting to happen happened. For example, Dick tried to play peek-a-boo with him, and all Emmett did was stare at him like he was an idiot and said "Silly, silly!" Before cackling wildly. He also taunted Tim when he split some of his coffee.

There was one person who the kid still wasn't sure about, and it was Bruce. It made sense, maybe the kid could feel that Jason was a little uneasy around him and so didn't completely trust the man either. But Bruce was determined to fix things between him and Jason, and a happy side-effect would be that Emmett might stop spitting in his face whenever he saw him.

Jason had just been saying to Dick that he's got to get Emmett out of the manor for a bit when Bruce entered the room.

"You still aren't in great shape, Jason. Why don't you let me take him?" Bruce offered.

Jason considered this for a moment, his gut instinct was to say absolutely not, but the other part of him thought about how funny it would be to see Bruce's reactions to the moms in the baby group, and so Jason agreed.

Bruce showed up in downtown Gotham with Emmett strapped into the stroller. At first, the other moms didn't notice, but one by one they turned around and stared at him.

"Are you... Bruce Wayne?" One of the moms enquired.

"Yep, I'm here for the baby group. My son Jason, couldn't make it today, so I brought Emmett," Bruce said.

The mom's stared at him. They were all late-twenties to early-thirties, all quite fit, and none of them knew what to do with this information.

"Well, the old man can't be as fast as Jason, maybe we'll get a little break today," One of them spoke.

The rest laughed and they brought Bruce into their fold. They jogged around the city for an extremely impressive amount of time for women who had fairly recently given birth. Bruce didn't really have a problem keeping up, and Jason was right, some of the women were very nice, a lot of them had very kind things to say about Jason afterwards when they went out to lunch.

"You know, my car broke down, and he just comes up to it, Emmett strapped to his chest, takes a sniff tells me exactly what's wrong with it and then fixes it right then and there. All while Emmett was sound asleep," One of the moms had recounted.

"And don't forget the time he watched all the kids while we went and got manicures that one time! I've never seen anyone handle that many babies before!"

"Yes, and he was reading them Jane Austen!" One of the other women chimed in.

"Jason, such a nice young man. It's too bad that he's so young, but my God it couldn't have happened to anyone with a better instinct for parenting."

Bruce, by the end of the day, was starting to view Jason in a completely different way. When he returned home with Emmett, Jason was passed out on the couch. Bruce set Emmett down by some of the toys Dick had brought over and went quickly to get a glass of water. As he re-entered the room, Jason woke up from what seemed like a nightmare. Before Bruce could do or say anything though, Emmett toddled over, holding onto nearby furniture to steady himself. He climbed up onto Jason and hugged the man- well, sort of. Jason was 20 years old, he had only turned 20 two months before Emmett was born. Sometimes Bruce forgot that Jason was still a child in his own right, having had 3 years of his life taken from him. He was reminded of that now, as Emmett comforted his dad.

"Thanks, M&M," Jason said, rubbing the boy's back. "I'm sorry you got stuck with such a messed up dad, but I promise you that you're going to know that I'm trying my best and that I love you."

Those words hit Bruce hard. Did Jason not know that Bruce loved him? Or that Bruce was trying to be a good father?

Bruce was thinking of saying something when Dick bounced in.

"Aww, you two are the cutest!" He exclaimed, looking at Emmett and Jason. "Can I take him for a bit?" Dick asked.

"Yeah, sure, go for it Dickie-bird. Why don't you take him outside and help him walk around for a bit?"

Dick grabbed Emmett, "Hi Emmett! It's uncle Dick! We're gonna go walking!" Emmett giggled as the two of them went outside.

Jason then grimaced as he sat up, then he noticed Bruce.

"So, how was it?" Jason asked.

"They were all very nice women, they were worried about you," Bruce said. "Janice kept asking if there was anything she could do to help."

Jason laughed a little, "Oh, I never thought that one of my greatest adversaries would be cougar moms."

"They actually said a lot of really nice things about you, Jason. It sounds like you're a natural with kids," Bruce said.

Jason shrugged, "Yeah, well, Bizzaro is basically a giant, super-powered toddler. I've got some practice."

"I'm really proud of you, Jason. I know I don't say it often or... well ever, but I'm- I'm so glad you're here with us. I'm so glad you're my son. I love you, Jay. And I love your son too," Bruce said.

Jason was stunned into silence, "I... thanks B, that-that really means a lot to me." He paused and thought about what he wanted to say. "It's hard, being a dad. I never gave you enough credit, ever."

They sat in silence for a while, "Jason, I know you want your space, but... I've been thinking about this, and I was wondering if you might want to consider using your skills in a... safer way."

"I'm not following," Jason said.

"Wayne Enterprises is looking for a new head of security," Bruce said. "And I think, I wouldn't want anyone else watching my back."

Jason blinked, "So, let me get this straight, you think I should give up Red Hood to become a security guard?"

"I think you'll find the job is much more interesting than that. Please, come by Wayne Enterprises next week on Tuesday, and I'll show you," Bruce said. "Also, and I don't say this to be rude, but you need a nicer apartment, in a better school district."

Jason grinned a little at that, "The last one is true. And I'll think about your offer." He stood and winced a little.

"Is it your ribs still?" Bruce asked.

"No, just keep pulling on the stitches by accident," Jason answered.

"Are you sure you should go back today? You can stay here as long as you want," Bruce offered.

"I know, but I want to get Emmett back into his routine," Jason said. "Maybe... you guys can all come over for dinner some time. He likes you."

"I'd... I'd really like that," Bruce said. For the first time in a long time, Bruce finally felt completely at peace, at least /Bruce/ did. Batman doesn't count.


	5. Bruce in Mourning pt 1 - Clark

Something was wrong with Batman. It was pretty clear to the Justice League that something had happened, though, any questioning on the matter was swiftly stopped by Batman. It really all came to a head when Bruce began demanding that only him, Wonder Woman and Superman go out on a fairly dangerous mission, one that would need all of their powers to succeed.

"Batman, come on, you can't be serious," Shazam started. "You're going to need all of us on this."

"No, it's too dangerous," Batman replied without hesitation.

"Do you even hear yourself, man?!" Flash exclaimed. "It's really dangerous, so let's leave more than half the gang behind!"

"Batman, you have to admit that there is no logic to this," Diana agreed.

Batman shook his head, "I'm not bringing children with us, Diana. That's final." Batman then turned and walked out of the room angrily.

They were about to go after him, but then Superman stopped them. "Wait, just let me talk to him for a second."

He watched the man until Bruce finally stopped and just started staring out one of the windows of the Watchtower.

As Clark flew up behind him, Bruce turned. "I'm not willing to bring them."

"I know, I just wanted to ask if you're alright," Clark said.

Bruce stared at him for a moment, "I'm fine."

"Don't lie, Bruce. What's going on?" Clark asked kindly.

Bruce turned back around, so Clark couldn't see his face.

"My son," Bruce started with a shaking voice. "Died."

"What?" Clark breathed.

"The Joker murdered him." There was a pause. "I- I can't do this, Clark. I'm sorry."

Clark walked up beside his friend to see that a few tears had slipped down the man's cheeks.

"No, it's okay, Bruce. We can handle this. I'm so sorry, I never imagined- he was such a happy kid. He loved you, you have to know that he wouldn't have wanted anything any other way-"

"Not Dick, _Jason_."

Clark felt sick to his stomach. Killing Dick was one thing, the 19-year-old knew the risks well, and he had gone off on his own. But _Jason_? Clark had only met him a couple of times, but he could tell the relationship between Bruce and Jason was vastly different than the one between Bruce and Dick. Dick had had a father, Bruce was more of a mentor, a partner. But Jason never really had a father, and Bruce fit right into that spot.

He was a child, a real child. 15 years old, and he was murdered.

"He was just a kid. And he was waiting for me, to come save him and I was too late. I was too late by one minute." Bruce's hands were shaking until he eventually balled them up into fists. "I'm sorry, if I stay I'll compromise the mission, just-"

"I'll watch their backs. We'll be okay, Bruce. I'm sorry, really. If you ever want to talk, you know where to find me."

...

It had been a few days since Clark had last seen Bruce, and he couldn't get the other man off of his mind. He could barely comprehend how much pain he had to be in, but he had still come to the Watchtower to help them. He decided he was going to reach out, and turned his super-vision toward Gotham, where he picked out Bruce in a graveyard.

Clark made his way over and found the man on his knees in front of the grave of Jason Todd.

"I'm so sorry Jay, I'm so sorry," he murmured.

Clark crouched down next to him, "Bruce, come on, you've been here for hours. Let me buy you dinner."

Bruce simply shook his head, "I couldn't do it, Clark."

Clark frowned as he looked at his friend, "Couldn't do what?"

"I couldn't kill him," Bruce said, his face turning blank. "I couldn't kill the man that killed my son."

Clark put a hand on Bruce's shoulder, "Bruce, you know as well as I do, that Jason wouldn't want you to give up everything you stand for just to-"

"To avenge him," Bruce interrupted, "And you're wrong. Jason would be so-so angry if he could see this. He _trusted__ me_ to come save him and I _didn't_."

"You tried your best, Bruce, you couldn't have gotten there any faster. This isn't your fault," Clark insisted.

Bruce fell silent, and a single tear fell down his face. "I never told him I loved him. I never- there were so many things that he didn't know, that I never got to say. He always was mad that I treated him differently than Dick, he thought it was because I didn't think he was good enough, but I never told him that it was because Dick was my partner, but Jason was _my son_. He called me _dad_, Clark. I was supposed to protect him, I was supposed to take care of him, and I got him killed!"

Bruce's hands were shaking as Clark brought him into a hug. "You didn't, Bruce. And he knew you loved him, of course he knew." Clark pulled away, "Come on, come get dinner with me." Clark stood and offered Bruce his hand.

Bruce stared up at the man and took his hand.

...

That night, Clark came home to Lois and hugged her tightly.

"What's going on? Where have you been all day?" Lois asked.

"I was with Bruce," Clark said. "His son just died."

Lois covered her mouth with a hand, "Oh God, but he was just a kid."

"I know, I know," Clark said. "I got him some dinner and took him back home. He's... blaming himself, obviously."

Lois shook her head, "I'm never letting Jon do this."

Just as she mentioned his name, the small toddler came rocketing into the room.

"Daddy!" He squealed and lept into Clark's arms.

Clark held him tightly and a few tears slipped from his eyes. "I love you, Jon. So much."

"What's wrong daddy?" Jon asked.

"Nothing Jon, I'm just happy that we're all here," Clark replied.

"Me too," Jon said and hummed into Clark's chest.


	6. Damian AU pt 1

Author's Note: Okay so this story is an AU where Jason meets Damian when Talia brings him to the League of Assassins. And now, many years later, the two of them are returning to Gotham. In this fic, the age differences between the Bat-kids are thus: Dick is six years older than Jason, Jason is four years older than Tim, and Tim is five years older than Damian.

* * *

Some of Damian's best memories are of Jason. Perhaps the best day of Damian's life was the day Jason knelt in front of the boy and asked him a simple question. "What do you want to do?"

Damian had furrowed his eyebrows, "What?" He was still just a child, only 7 years old. Jason was 16, he had been with the League, with Damian for almost two years now. But things were starting to change, Talia and Ra's, they were planning something, and Jason just didn't want Damian to get hurt.

"If you want to leave, I'll come with you, I'll help you. If you want to stay here, I'll protect you. But I want to know... what do you want to do, Dami?" Jason asked.

Damian looked at the man who, over the past two years, had done everything in his power to protect him from his own family. "I... want..." The boy's eyes started to tear up, "I don't want them to hurt me anymore." Damian started to cry, and Jason tucked him into his embrace.

"Okay, we're going to go, we'll go," Jason pulled back and wiped the tears from Damian's eyes, "I'm gonna get you out of here. And we're going to go far away from the League of Assassins, alright?"

Damian nodded and pulled himself back into Jason's chest.

So Jason started planning, and a week later, they were at the gates of the fortress, about to step outside, when Talia walked out in front of them.

"And where do the two of you think you're going?" She asked with malice to her voice that she often left concealed.

Damian was frozen in fear, and Jason knelt beside him. "Don't look, okay, shut your eyes and only open them when I say it's okay." Damian stared at Jason in fear. Jason shut Damian's eyes with his hands and whispered, "Don't watch."

Then Damian felt Jason's presence leave his side, and Damian wanted nothing more than to open his eyes and run after him, but he kept his eyes closed. He could hear pained cries, shouts of anger, and then finally... silence. He didn't know who won. But then...

"Damian, just... kept your eyes closed. I'm going to pick you up, okay?" Jason's voice said.

Damian nodded. He felt himself in the tight grip of Jason one again.

"Did you kill her?" Damian asked, his eyes still closed.

"No, but one day, if you want me to, I will, okay?" Jason said. "But she won't be bothering anyone for a while."

And then Jason, true to his word, took Damian far away from the League of Assassins. They lived on an island for a long time. Jason would fish and Damian grew vegetables in the garden. They would train with each other on the beach, and they'd surf in waves in the morning. It was perfect. Except for the nightmares.

Damian's were bad, of course, but Jason always knew what to do to calm him down. It was Jason's nightmares that scared Damian. Jason's nightmares of the day he was murdered at the hands of a psychotic clown. Damian didn't know what to do, and those nights often ended in Jason just holding Damian in his arms until the older man's body finally stopped shaking. That happened at least twice a week, and no matter what happened on the island, or how perfect their new life was, they never stopped.

That was how Damian decided he wanted to kill the Joker.

It was a pretty normal morning, they were sitting on the beach eating a simple breakfast when Damian had turned to Jason.

"I think... I want to go to Gotham," he had said hesitantly. He watched Jason closely, and besides an odd look, he didn't react.

"Okay, we can go," Jason responded.

Damian's eyebrows had furrowed, "But you hate Gotham."

Jason had softened then, turning to Damian, "Kid, you know I would do anything for you, and I mean it. If you want to go to Gotham, we'll go."

So they began preparing for the trip. Jason took the boat to the mainland for a while to get in contact with a guy who could get them fake Id's and passports. The night before they were going to go, Jason finally asked what Damian could tell had been on his mind for a while.

"Why Gotham?" Jason asked.

"I... I think I'd like to meet the man who fathered me. And..." Damian looked to Jason and could tell the man didn't exactly believe his first reason. "And I want to kill _him_."

Jason furrowed his eyebrows, "Who?"

"The man who hurt you, the Joker."

Jason did tense up at that, "Dami..." He sighed and then his face went serious, "I need you to promise me something."

"Of course, anything," Damian said immediately. He trusted Jason, more than he trusted himself.

"Promise me that you won't go anywhere near that clown alone." Damian's eyes shot up to meet Jason's, "You let me deal with him, alright? But going after him alone is how I died, and I'm not going to let that happen to you, okay?"

Damian nodded after a few moments, "But we're still going to kill him, right?"

Jason chuckled deeply, "_I'll_ kill him. I know it bothers you. But you can be there if it'd make you feel better."

Damian nodded, Jason chuckled again and put an arm around the kid.

The next day they were on a plane to Gotham.

Jason had gotten a decent apartment and was trying to re-establish some contacts with people who could set them up with some gear.

Damian had started to have some doubts about his plan, mostly because Jason seemed so on edge here. And if Damian thought that Jason's nightmares were bad on the island...

But Jason never made any mention of it to Damian, and he tried hard to make himself seem okay, because for some reason the kid loved him, and he'd freak out if Jason started to act Not Okay.

Then, the day was upon them, Damian was going to meet his father.

Jason suited up, and so did Damian. Jason wore a helmet to hide his face and voice, and Damian wore a simple domino mask. They took down a few muggers, busted up a few drug deals, and then they picked a roof and waited.

They weren't disappointed. Batman landed in front of them, and Damian was a bit awestruck.

"Who are you?" Batman growled.

Damian glanced at Jason, "He's shorter than I imagined."

Jason snorted, and Batman took another step forward. "Why are you here?"

Jason nudged Damian forward, "He's not going to hurt you."

Damian stepped forward nervously. "I am... your son."

Batman blinked, "What?"

"I am... Damian. Talia was-is my mother," Damian said.

Batman blinked as he looked at the young boy in front of him. He didn't say anything for a moment, but then he did.

"And I'm just supposed to believe you?"

Jason tensed slightly behind Damian, and it didn't escape Batman's notice.

Damian held out his arm and looked Batman right in the eye, he wasn't afraid of the man, not with Jason right behind him.

"Here, I can prove it."

Batman glanced to the man in all black behind the boy as he pulled out a device to collect blood.

"How can I get in contact with you?" Batman then asked. "If this proves to be real."

"You won't, I know where you live, Bruce," Jason said. He then gestured for Damian to follow him.

"Wait! Who are you?" Bruce asked.

"Call me the Knight," Jason said before him and Damian disappeared.

...

Batman raced back to the Batcave after meeting Damian and... the Knight on the rooftop.

Alfred, Dick and Tim were waiting in the cave when he came back. He ignored them as he almost frantically ran the blood through his analyzing system.

'Match.' Was what the computer system read.

"Master Bruce, what in heaven's name is going on here?" Alfred finally asked.

Bruce removed the cowl and turned in his chair. "The boy, he's... my son."

Dick and Tim looked at each other with shock written across their faces.

"Surely that must be some sort of mistake, Master Bruce. Who could the mother be?"

"Talia," Bruce answered quietly. "And I think it's about time I speak with her."

Bruce Wayne left on a business trip to the Middle East that night.

It wasn't difficult to find Talia, in fact, it had almost been as if she was expecting him. But he wasn't expecting what he saw when he found her.

Her right eye was missing, and a large scar marred her face from her cheek to her forehead.

"Talia," Bruce greeted cautiously.

"My beloved, it is nice of you to come here again," Talia said with a sultry smile.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Tell you what?"

"About our son!" Bruce shouted in anger.

Talia narrowed her eyes at Bruce, "Damian has been in contact with you?" She asked.

"Yes, he came to Gotham a few days ago."

"And was there a man with him?" Talia asked.

It was Bruce's turn to narrow his eyes, "Yes. What do you know about him?"

Talia chuckled, "Oh, he was the one who did this to me. He kidnapped my son, took him away from me. But I won't ruin the surprise for you."

"What does he want with Damian?"

"Oh, I don't know. The last time we spoke he just kept shouting that I wasn't going to get to hurt him anymore. A shame, a little longer and he would have been _perfect_."

Bruce left then and resolved to keep away from Talia for a while. She was different now.

...

A few days passed, and just like Jason had thought, Batman hadn't been spotted in Gotham, which meant that he had gone to confront Talia. And a few nights later, when Batman reappeared in the city, Jason and Damian once again drew his attention.

Bruce met them on a rooftop again, except this time, Nightwing was with him.

Jason was immediately warier. He felt confident that he could take down Nightwing on his own, and he felt confident that he could distract Batman long enough that he and Damian could get away, but he was far less confident that he could do both simultaneously.

"Why come to Gotham now?" Bruce asked.

Jason kept silent, as always. This was Damian's connection to make, he wasn't going to ruin anything by opening his mouth and letting the old man have a piece of his mind.

"I wanted to meet you," Damian answered. "I'll admit, I hadn't thought about what I was going to do after."

And now Jason saw what the purpose of Nightwing's presence was.

"Well, I'm Dick, it's really nice to meet you," he said with a goofy grin on his face.

"Yes, I have heard of your exploits, Grayson," Damian replied. Dick's grin faltered slightly as he glanced to the silent Knight. How did he know anything about him. "The story of how you bedded the alien harlot Starfire is one of my favourites." Dick choked and Jason snickered in the background. "Redheaded women seem unnaturally drawn to you, especially considering that you appear to be a fool."

Jason couldn't help himself, he was now bent over with laughter. This was slightly unsettling to Bruce and Dick.

"Uh... actually, now that you mention it... I guess I do have a thing for redheads," Dick said.

"Yes, and I also enjoy the story of the theft of Bruce Wayne's Lamborghini," Damian said.

"Okay, how do you know about that?!" Dick exclaimed.

Damian composed himself, "J- The Knight, has told me many stories of yourself, my... father, Mr. Pennyworth."

Dick looked at the Knight with confusion, but he smiled and walked up to him anyway.

"Dick Grayson," he said as he held out his hand.

Jason tensed completely as Grayson approached him, and when he introduced him, Jason scoffed.

"We've met, believe me."

Dick frowned, but stepped back and said nothing.

"Well... do you want to come back to the cave for some of Alfred's hot chocolate?" Dick asked. Damian glanced back at Jason. "Uh, the Knight's more than welcome to come too."

Jason then walked to Damian's side and crouched down so they were level, "Go ahead, I have a bit of work I'd like to take care of. If you need me, call."

Damian nodded, "I'll be back before morning."

Jason nodded and then jumped off the roof.

Dick and Bruce could immediately tell from Damian's body language that he was uneasy without the Knight's presence.

They went to the Batcave, and Damian would be lying if he said he wasn't impressed.

"So, what do you think?" Bruce asked.

"It is very impressive, just like the Knight told me," Damian said.

Before Bruce or Dick had time to react to being told that somehow this mysterious Knight had been in the Batcave before, Alfred came down, followed by Tim.

"Damian, this is Robin, Tim," Bruce introduced.

"Hey, it's nice to meet you, Damian," Tim said.

"J- _The Knight_," Damian growled out. "Has told me of you. He says you fight admirably and are incredibly intelligent, so I will respect you."

"Uh... thanks," Tim said.

Damian then looked to Pennyworth, "The Knight says you are the best man he has ever known." Damian said.

Alfred looked at the young boy with surprise, "And who might he be, Master Damian?"

Damian shook his head, "He has requested I not say. But he told me that you're the reason he knew how to take care of me for all those years, so thank you."

Alfred set down the tray of hot chocolate, and everyone, including Bruce, took one.

"Well, you're very welcome, Master Damian," Alfred said.

Damian then walked around the cave. He admired the large dinosaur and the giant penny. He looked around at all the trophies and collected items from the vilians fought in the past, but then Damian came across something that made his blood boil.

It was a Robin suit... Jason's Robin suit, the clothes he had died in. Damian wasn't so upset that the suit was displayed, but when he read the inscription he snapped. 'A Good Soldier'.

"The Knight told me many stories about Batman and Robin, the most about Jason Todd and Bruce Wayne," Damian said. "I wonder, if he could see this, he would be hurt that you just thought of him as a child soldier and not as a son."

Bruce frowned and Dick was going to say something, but Alfred spoke first.

"I do not know what you've heard. But anything other than the fact that Master Bruce loved that boy more than anything is a lie," Alfred said. His voice was now sharp.

"Let the man speak for himself, Pennyworth," Damian said with a scowl toward Bruce.

"What happened to Jason was one of my greatest failures, his uniform is there to remind me of that," Bruce said.

Dick and Tim shared A Look, and Alfred looked a little disappointed with Bruce's answer.

Damian turned back at stared at the glass for a moment. "I'll admit, I'm a little disappointed. If anyone ever did this to me, the Knight would do everything in his power to make sure the person responsible would never see the light of day again. How many times has the clown escaped since this happened?"

Bruce was starting to get a little angry, and honestly, so was everyone else. This was a touchy subject still, even after nearly five years.

Something bad was probably about to happen, but they were cut off with the ringing of the phone in the Batcave. Everyone looked at it with confusion, only the people currently in the Batcave knew the number.

Alfred went over the phone and picked it up. He didn't say a word, but that didn't stop the person calling from knowing who had answered.

"Hey Alfred, put the kid on the phone," the Knight's augmented voice spoke.

"Master Damian, it is for you," Alfred said.

Damian quickly snatched the phone from Alfred's hands.

"Hello?"

"Hey kid, you'll never guess who I just found. I'll give you a guess, his name rhymes with smEzra."

"Ezra is here?" Damian asked, eyes wide.

"Don't worry, I've got him under control, but if you want to come down to the docks and-"

"I'll be right there," Damian said quickly and then hung up the phone.

"Who's Ezra?" Tim asked.

"He was my primary teacher before mother found the Knight. He taught me a hard lesson in trusting people," Damian gritted his teeth. "I will require the use of one of your vehicles."

"I'll come with you," Bruce said. "We'll take the Batmobile."

Less than a minute later, they were rocketing out of the Batcave.

"So... the Knight. He's been with you for a long time?" Bruce asked.

"My mother found him when I was five. He escaped with me when I was seven. He raised me on an island in the Pacific for three years before we came to Gotham," Damian revealed.

Bruce let that information sink in. "I'm sorry, about your upbringing. If I had known about you, I wouldn't have let her keep you."

Damian shrugged, "The Knight says it's not healthy to think about what could have happened."

Bruce nodded at that. "What are you planning on doing to this Ezra?" He asked, moving away from the more personal topic.

"I... don't know. I suppose it depends on what he says," Damian said.

They pulled up at the docks and clearly saw where the Knight had carved a path through the many goons. At first, Bruce thought they were dead, but upon inspection, he discovered they were not.

They walked into the warehouse to see even more unconscious men, and in the middle was a man tied to a chair, babbling apologies and pleas to let him go.

"Please, I have a wife, I have money, do you want money? Please!" He stopped when he saw Damian and the Batman enter the room.

Damian's heart was pounding, and the Knight could clearly tell he was struggling with this. He walked up to the kid and knelt in front of him so that Damian felt bigger. "What do you want me to do?"

Damian looked over the Knight's shoulder to Ezra. "I... I don't know, I just don't want to see him again."

The Knight gripped Damian's shoulder reassuringly, "Okay kid, I'm gonna rough him up a bit because he deserves it, then I'll get rid of him. Why don't you turn around?"

Damian nodded and turned around. The Knight stood, staring at Batman, who couldn't see his face, and therefore didn't know what he was thinking.

The Knight then turned on his heel and walked back over to Ezra. He didn't pull his punches as he broke Ezra's nose and likely fractured his orbital socket.

"Please! Please! Mercy!" Ezra cried.

Then, Jason stopped. "Mercy? You think I'm going to show you mercy? After what you did to him?!" Jason hit him until he stopped pleading. Then he stopped and crouched in front of the man. "If I ever see you again. If _he_ ever sees you again, I'll kill you."

Ezra nodded frantically, and as the Knight cut the ropes tying him to the chair. He stood shakily and left through the back.

Then the Knight came up to Damian and Batman again. Damian had turned around when he heard Ezra leave.

"Better, kid?" Jason asked.

Damian nodded.

Batman, however, was less pleased. "You could have killed him."

"I didn't, but if I had, he would have deserved it," the Knight answered.

"That's not how we operate in Gotham."

The Knight was barely containing himself. If he wasn't trying to keep his own feelings about Bruce contained for the sake of Damian, he would have snapped.

"Well, I wouldn't expect you to understand what it's like to feel emotions," the Knight quipped. "You want to stay the night with Batman?" He asked Damian. The boy shook his head and stepped closer to Jason. "Alright, let's go, I'll make us soup."

Batman watched as the two climbed onto Jason's bike and sped off. He then returned to the Batcave.

"I need to know who the Knight is. He knows far too much about us," Bruce said when he returned.

"He said he'd met me before," Dick contributed.

"And Damian said the Knight knew the most about Jason as Robin. Maybe they were friends?" Tim suggested.

"Jason didn't have friends, at least, not ones that ever came into the manor, let alone the Batcave," Bruce said. Then Alfred walked in, "He knew Alfred very well."

"I'm afraid I have also been thinking about who this might be, and I cannot, for the life of me, figure it out," Alfred said.

Bruce gritted his teeth and stared down the computer, "I'll figure this out."

It was a week later, and Bruce had nothing. And that was the precise moment all hell broke loose.

The Joker escaped from Arkham... again. Damian's words rang back into his ears and he felt a sharp pain in his chest.

He gathered the whole team, Dick, Tim and Barbara, and they converged on the reported location of the Joker. Imagine their surprise when they found they had been beaten there by Damian and the Knight.

Clearly, this had all been planned, because they were far fewer men than would be expected in a typical group of Joker gang members. Damian was handling the last few of them that were still standing, while the Knight stalked up to the Joker himself. He was holding a crowbar in his hand.

"Have you put it all together yet? Do you know who I am?" Jason asked.

Dick was about to jump down, but Batman gestured for everyone to hold their positions. He wanted to see how this was going to play out.

"No, but let me guess!" The Joker said in that seemingly always gleeful voice of his. "The helmet is compensating for something isn't it!"

Batman could almost feel the Knight smirk. "How about I give you a hint?" He walked around the Joker before raising the crowbar. "What's worse? Forehand?" Jason hit him hard in the stomach, "Or backhand?" Jason hit him in the side of the head. Then he stepped back and looked at the clown tied to the chair.

The Joker started laughing maniacally. "You really expect me to believe that? I killed him!"

Then the Knight reached up and pulled the helmet off his head, "Oh, you did. But I'm back. And I'm here to make sure you can't hurt anyone ever again." Jason's blade plunged into the Joker's chest, and he turned to look at Damian revealing his face to the Bat's above.

All of them were in shock. Bruce reacted the fastest. He dropped down, and Jason, not trying to hide his identity anymore, turned to face him.

Jason narrowed his eyes at Bruce and shook his head slightly, "What, at a loss for words? I'm _hurt_."

"Jason... I... I held your dead body in my arms. How is this possible?" Bruce eventually said.

"Hell wasn't ready to deal with me," Jason replied wittily. At this point, Damian finished the last thug and went to stand a bit behind Jason.

Dick and Tim then jumped down behind Bruce. While Barbara went to see if the Joker was still alive.

"Jay?" Dick asked, tears welling in his eyes as he stepped forward.

Tim wasn't so sure about this miracle though. "Batman... Jason had blue eyes."

All eyes went to Jason's eyes, and they saw that they were now a bright green.

"The Lazarus pit changes things," Jason said. He then took out a knife and cut his hand, leaving blood dripping on the floor of the warehouse.

"He's dead," Barbara said.

"Why did you kill him?" Bruce demanded.

"I don't think you'd understand since you never gave a shit about me."

"That's not true! I loved you, you were my son!"

"You know, maybe I would have bought that whole argument before I met Damian, but now that I know what it's like to have a child trust you, and love you? You know what I would do if anything happened to him? I would kill everyone responsible and then I would kill myself because I wouldn't be able to live with the fact that I couldn't protect him!" Jason shouted. "I trusted you to be there! I watched a bomb tick down as I bled to death on cold cement and you weren't there! And then, after all that, you went and got another kid to risk his life for _you_! I hope that you can look him in the eye and tell him that his life isn't worth breaking a code."

Jason turned, put a hand on Damian's back and started walking away.

Bruce was just standing there, he was shocked, devastated, and yet so happy.

"Bruce, say something," Dick said from his side.

"Jason wait!" Bruce called, taking a few steps forward. Jason stopped and looked over his shoulder. "I'm so happy you're alive. Thank you, for taking care of Damian."

Jason just stood there for a few more seconds, and then he kept walking.


	7. Jason's Baby pt 3

Jason did end up going to check out the job as head of security at Wayne Enterprises, and like Bruce had said, he was surprised. The job was much more than he thought it was. It included designing and implementing security for the whole building, occasionally accompanying board members to foreign countries, and interestingly, training the permanent security team that watched after the most senior members of Wayne Enterprises. He would be in charge of a team of 50 men, all tasked with the protection of the board members.

Jason originally wasn't in love with the idea, but then he found out just how much action they got, and his interests were piqued. Apparently, Tim alone had had over 50 kidnapping or assassination attempts within the last two months.

He went back to the manor and picked up Emmett from Alfred before heading back to his apartment. The next day he texted Bruce, he'd take the job.

Bruce replied with an address. He had taken the liberty of finding him a nicer place to live. At first that had annoyed Jason, but he couldn't lie, when he went to the penthouse with the best view of Gotham Jason had seen, any thoughts of anger towards Bruce about this place went out the window. He moved in the following day, and then he went to work. Alfred came by every morning to pick up Emmett, who was almost always happy to see the man.

Of course, Jason couldn't just completely let go of the Red Hood, he still went out once a week or so, but he never did anything overly dangerous. He just helped out the kids. Gave them food, stopped them from getting beat on by corrupt cops that had nothing better to do, that sort of thing.

Everything was going great. Emmett was great, Jason was sleeping better, even Jason's job was quite a bit entertaining.

The men, and a few women, working under Jason were hesitant about him at first. They figured that he had only been hired because his daddy runs the company, but they were actually pleasantly surprised when he proved himself more than capable.

Their respect and loyalty to their boss were so high, that one day when Alfred wasn't available to watch Emmett, Jason walked into their usual conference room with a small child on his shoulders, no one said a word.

There were several divisions of security, each one had roughly ten men, and each one had a leader. Jason mostly interacted with those six group leaders, and he might even be inclined to call them friends. They were the ones watching Jason, the young man that they knew was capable of extreme violence, do a presentation on the security plan for the next Wayne charity gala with a toddler on his shoulders. They didn't even know he had a kid until this very moment.

"Dadadadada," the kid babbled as Jason finished his presentation.

"Any questions?" Jason asked with a completely normal face.

The room was silent, and then Jason's right-hand man spoke.

"Can I hold him?"

The room was tense with silence, and none of them could read Jason's expression. Most of them were thinking that Carter was going to be murdered right in front of them by a certain Jason Wayne. But Jason just scooped Emmett off his shoulders and put him right in Carter's lap.

Emmett looked up to Jason curiously.

"Emmett, that's Carter. Everyone, this is my son, Emmett," Jason introduced.

Emmett grabbed at Carter's face for a few seconds and then declared his name, "Cat! Cat! I Em-Em!"

Carter laughed a little, "Nice to meet you, Emmett."

Jason then continued on with the other items they needed to address that day, and Emmett fell asleep on Carter's chest. When they were done for the morning, and they dispersed for coffee and/or to reconvene with the rest of their group, Carter was a little afraid to move.

"Uh... Boss? What should I-"

Jason walked up to him and carefully took Emmett into his arms without waking him up.

"Good work Carter," Jason said quietly, and then the man left. Leaving Carter confused in the conference room.

After lunch, Carter met up with Jason again, in Bruce Wayne's office where they were supposed to be checking it over for security flaws. But Carter entered the office to see Emmett in the arms of Tim Drake in the midst of throwing a Wonder Woman toy at Bruce Wayne's head.

"Carter, you're here. Let's get started," Jason said. He was all business as usual, not even smirking when Wonder Woman hit Bruce right in the face.

Tim put Emmett down briefly, and the kid toddled over to Carter. "Cat! Up!" Carter complied and picked the kid up, which didn't make Jason react at all, but both Bruce and Tim stared at the man with a hint of confusion. 'Man, this family is weird,' Carter thought.

Once again, Emmett fell asleep on Carter, and Jason made no move to take back his son until they were in the elevator back down to Jason's office.

"You're good with kids Carter," Jason commented as he took Emmett back.

"Thanks, Boss."


End file.
